W. P. Kinsella's Shoeless Joe - Assignment Example

Shoeless Joe W.P. Kinsella Question 1 Canadian writer W. P. Kinsella's first novel, Shoeless Joe, loves baseball; that is obvious. It is this love for the sport that supports every aspect of the story and every action of its characters. This mystical attraction permeates the story and provides the foundation for the actions of its main character, Ray Kinsella, an Iowa farmer and consummate dreamer, who one day, following a mysterious voice which tells him, “if you build it, he will come,” is driven to do it. (Shoeless Joe, Forward, p4) His hope: that in building the ball field Ray’s father’s hero, Shoeless Joe Jackson, will appear. Jackson was banned from baseball for life following the Black Sox Scandal of 1919, in which he and seven other players accepted bribes to throw the World Series. Kinsella’s novel gives Joe and his disparaged Black Sox teammates a “second chance,” as it were. “...Kinsella doesn’t merely treat baseball as a subject in itself; rather, he uses it as a metaphor, a way to talk about things like innocence, belief, and perhaps above all, America. Shoeless Joe is a parable about one of the most fundamental American ideals, beginning anew.”(Shoeless Joe, Forward, p4) The underlying theme is that Ray will stop at nothing, including kidnapping the famous author J.D. Salinger, to assure the success of his quest to dispel his father’s disappointment and restore the broken dreams and hero status of Shoeless Joe. Salinger, whose own status has been diminished by critics, has been driven into seclusion. He will be saved by, what else, baseball. Baseball is the answer to everything. The notion lies at the bottom of all Kinsella is trying to say to us. It’s a sentimental story, no doubt. Kinsella uses imagination and poetic dialogue to support his notion of baseball as a quasi-religion and as such offers the possibility of redemption for all his characters, real of imagined. For Ray Kinsella, estranged from his father before his death, it offers an opportunity to mend the relationship posthumously. “We were always going to go to a major league baseball game...he and I,” says Ray. “But the time was never right; the money was always needed for something else.” (Shoeless Joe, p28) Baseball and building the field is the panacea for all problems as he sees them. Ray’s family support system allows him to chase his dream. Without them, he undoubtedly would not have built the field and as a result, satisfy the dreams of the characters. Their understanding and, in his daughter’s case, her actual involvement in his pursuit of the dream are essential to the story. His father loved the sport as much as Ray, and in a sense provided the impetus for Ray, now a man, to see the game as a panacea, an all important aspect of life. His brothers, woven into the tale as characters in J.D Salinger’s book, Catcher in the Rye, complete the support system for Ray’s actions. Doubtless, Kinsella wove them into the story for this reason to show that family, and those we love, are indispensible to our dreams. Question 2 “I wish I had your passion for baseball,” Salinger says. (Shoeless Joe, p110) But he doesn’t. It’s just one worldview they do not share. Ray and J.D. Salinger, coming from varied backgrounds and experiences, interestingly do share certain worldviews while holding different opinions on others. This is to be expected, since Salinger and Ray seem to have one passion in common, baseball. Beyond that their lives have evolved in a very different manner. One has chosen to avoid the slings and arrows of the world’s criticism by hiding himself away. The other, Ray, is more gregarious, more hopeful than the cynical Salinger. Yet they both avidly watch baseball games on television, a pastime also enjoyed by Ray’s father, who, like Salinger albeit for different reasons, never goes to a ballpark. “Ease his pain,” the voice urges Ray. (Shoeless Joe, Forward, p5) Ray, the more hopeful of the two, is charged with the salvation of Salinger, as he is charged with the salvation of Shoeless Joe and the others. And of course the way to achieve this is through a bond shared by both men—their love of baseball. Ray wants to get Salinger out of himself, seeing himself and the author watching a ballgame at Fenway Park, eating hotdogs. “Salinger holds up like a badger in new Hampshire,” Ray says. (Shoeless Joe, p38) Ray will have none of that; he will get him to game, even if he has to threaten him with a gun and kidnapping. The article Ray reads both gives him mixed feelings. While his love of baseball “establishes a vague kinship between us,” Ray says. (Shoeless Joe, p40) Salinger, in the article, recommends the establishment of baseball shrines throughout the country, a suggestion in perfectly line with the baseball field he is building on his farm. They are soulmates in this respect. However, Ray goes on to express his sadness that the interview “radiated loneliness.” (Shoeless Joe, p41) Yet, he believes through what he thinks is their mutual love of baseball, a true comradeship is possible. It is with a good dose of realism that he discovers after the Red Sox game that Salinger, while interested in baseball, is not the all-consuming fan Ray believed he was. He does not share his passion. Ray and Salinger have both kept their dreams close. More sophisticated about the ways of the world, Salinger envisions a way that Ray can pay off his debts and keep the farm: the baseball field will become a magnet for tourists, which it does. And even though in the end Ray is jealous when the players ask Salinger to go out with them after the game, he realizes that the author, who has even bigger dreams than his, may get his wish to actually play baseball at the Polo Grounds. One might conclude that Salinger, as a renowned author and man of the world, has views that coincide with those experiences, while Ray’s views are certainly more nostalgic and have more to do with associating the game of baseball with resolution of personal relationships. Question 3 The use of voices to guide the characters' actions are in Shoeless Joe the voices of conscience, vehicles that promote secret wishes and most importantly, forward the plot. Beginning with the god-like voice (the game announcer) that tells Ray to build the ball field in the cornfield, another prompts him to “ease his pain.” The “his” the voice is referring to Salinger’s, for it knows that in doing so Ray will be relieving his own pain, that of his father’s, and that of Shoeless Joe and his co-players whose dreams were crushed when they were convicted of throwing the world series. A voice also prompts both Salinger and Ray to go and seek Moonlight Graham, the first step in collecting the players who will play at his ball field in the cornfield. As Salinger and Ray drive to Minnesota, where Graham died in 1965, Salinger tells Ray that he has received a message encouraging them to pursue Ray’s dream, which, in a way, has now become Salinger’s. They visit the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown and research Graham's single major-league game. They arrive in Minnesota to discover Graham has died. He’d been a beloved town doctor for many years, forwarding the story’s notion of redemption. That night Ray encounters the ghostly Graham who explains that if he had one wish, it would be to play in a major-league game, something he never had a chance to do. Again, a voice has forwarded the storyline. (The next day he and Salinger pick up a young Archie Graham on the road.) Moving on, the voice of Ray’s old friend, Eddie Scissons, encourages him to take him along to the field where he also can live out his dream. The voices are the catalyst that drives each character toward some ultimate fulfillment. It is as if they are whispering in the main characters’ ears—do this, now do that—instructional how-to hints on going for what you want in life and in the process, living the rest of it in peace. Reference Kinsella,W.P.(1982).Shoeless Joe. RosettaBooks, LLC, 2002. http://www.wowio.com/users/product.asp?BookId=57 Read More